1. Originally, a smaller silent movie theater, often made out of an old converted storefront, which cost a five cents for admission. The literal definition of the word nickelodeon is "nickel theater", from "nickel" (a five cent piece), and "odeon" (the Greek word for theater).

2. A term applied to any American-made coin operated piano or orchestrion. This usage came about because many nickelodeon theatre owners who could not afford a live pianist or orchestra to accompany the film would buy a coin piano or orchestrion and turn it on and let it play all day, with the assumption that any music (even if it was not coordinated with what was going on on the screen) was better than no music at all! Later, special instruments such as the photoplayer and theatre organ were produced specifically to accompany silent movies, and these could be operated by a single person, either playing manually with the keyboards and controls, or using special "mood music" rolls they could coordinate with the action on the screen.

3. A TV channel for kids, with both animated and live-action shows, some of which are exclusive to that network. It has been around since about c.1990, and the quality and programming has been somewhat controversial.

4. A movie made in 1976 starring Ryan O'Neal and Burt Reynolds. It was directed by Peter Bogdanovich and tells the tale of a couple of early silent film actors/makers. Was not terribly successful, and has been alternately maligned and praised.

5. For some reason, dictionaries have listed the word "nickelodeon" as a slang term for "jukebox", which in itself is a slang term for a coin-operated phonograph. I have never personally heard this usage, as most people who see a jukebox know what it is called. This usage, if indeed it exists, probably comes from the fact that the jukebox largely replaced the coin piano and orchestrion in public places such as bars and restaurants by performing essentially the same function: providing music for money. This changeover happened about 1930 or so.

1. "It's Saturday, what shall we do to-day?"
"Why don't we go down to the nickelodeon and see that new Charlie Chaplin movie, it's supposed to be very funny."

3."What do you think of Nickelodeon nowadays?"
"I think it would be better if they stuck with shows like Hey! Arnold and Pete and Pete, instead of all this new stuff that's really too bland and trendy."

Used to be a classic favorite by all, it canceled all of it's good shows such as Welcome Freshmen, Salute Your Shorts, Rocko, Ren & Stimpy, and Nick Arcade. They started to aim towrds the sterotypical children that were spawning from somewhere. They began covering the new "pop" (aka. crap, homo-gays, %*&*) groups that were spawning from the same place as the sterotypical children. They struck back with Invader Zim, but was canceled because the type of humor flew right over the little kids heads. It now hold the personal record by about every person in America above the age of 13 as the worst television station and ahould be plagued with head cancer.

A now horrible kids channel. It started off pretty good with Ren and Stimpy and Rocko's modern Life (even Angry beavers wasn't all shit) but promptly canceled all their good shows and started to play towards f*cking 6-year olds. Then came Spongebob and it almost completely died. It made a brief (but amazing) comeback with Invader Zim, but, of course, they cancelled it, leading to its utter doom. Now, unless they bring some good shows into their pathetic schedule, it wil soon be cancelled as well.

A television network station that once had spark and fun. Used to be made up of shows such as Rocko, Hey Arnold, Legends of the Hidden Temple, Are You Afraid of the Dark, and Clarissa Explains It All, just to name a few. This network has downgraded itself with "new and improved" clean innuendo shows such as Spongebob Squarepants and Fairly Oddparents. Tries to redeem itself with "TeeNick" network, but has not been successful. On the brink of being off the expanded cable network.

A great Kid's TV Channel until the mid-90's when it began to suck. It had supa-fly shows such as Clarissa Explains It All, The Adventures Of Pete and Pete, Doug, Salute Your Shorts, Ren and Stimpy, Rocko's Modern Life, Ahh! Real Monsters, Legends of the Hidden Temple, Figure it Out and etc. Then they started to slowly decline as they kept replacing the cast of All That, made a new version of Double Dare called Double Dare 2000. Their good cartoons were taken off the air and their ok cartoons such as Rugrats, got worse and worse. They occasionly had a good show like Invader Zim but was cancelled probably cuz faux-punks who shop at Hot Topic started wearing Gir and Zim pins and T-shirts. Now they just suck and show crappy shows such as ChalkZone, Fairly Oddparents, Zoey 101, and Unfabulous.